Hot Stuff and the Cold Read
by Coffin Liqueur
Summary: One-shot. The Ultimate Clairvoyant can walk ya through solutions to any problem - including helping a guy out with reexamining his lacking love life from square one! Maybe - just let him demonstrate, Leon!


Hagakure opened one eye.

On the opposite side of a large, plate-mounted tuning fork, Leon still sat, mirroring him in position, legs crossed, head slightly bowed, palms together in a praying posture in front of his face - cutting it in a vertical line in Hagakure's vision from hairline to chin.

In fact, he mirrored Hagakure a bit too perfectly.

"Man," he said. A false-whisper. "No peeking. Leon, _c'mon_."

Leon's mouth turned in a brief silent _ugh_. "Yeah, yeah..." Angled his head to scratch it above the temple for a mo' or two. "...Sorry, I guess."

Hagakure kept his eye open as Leon's shut again - for about three, four... five seconds. Assessing that he was, indeed, not about to cheat again, and reassessing exactly how well he'd followed the instructions he'd been given. It was Hagakure's neck on the line if he hadn't, or at least his credibility, which may as well have been the same diff at this part of his life. Everything looked chill - the dude hadn't refreshed his hair dye in a little bit, rendering it half-blond and half dark-dark brown. _Now_ he looked like some kindova lion. That's what the name meant, right? And he'd come dressed down a little - less of that flashy white.

A little less Kimba, in other words, for that matter. A little less Simba, at that, too.

Red hair, and all.

Yeah.

Hagakure nodded one sage, sage nod, and contented, he slipped his own peeking eye shut.

He was allowed to cheat. He wasn't the one being asked to pick up signs in this particular case. Nah - he was just the guide.

"Now... a'ight," he said. "Tell me what you hear."

"Uhhhhhh..." The line of Leon's mouth turned in a frown. His brow furrowed. One half raised. Then the other.

"_Focus_, all right? Focus. Just - keep your mind on the fork, man. You gotta let it tune your wavelength." Ultimate Clairvoyance saw Leon's eyelids twitch. "_Without_ openin' your eyes."

"How the hell'm I supposed to - "

"Use your _mind's_ eye, all right? You already know it's set up there."

"Yeah, whatever..." It trailed off a little soft, at least. Begrudgingly docile.

Mmkay. Good. Goodgoodgood, this was still goin' fine...

"...You hear something yet?" he said. Opening one eye again, looking Leon with a _weight_ in the face. Surveying.

The guy was concentrating. He "uhhhhhh..."-ed again. Chewed his lip a second before his focused scowl drew half-aside.

Hagakure smiled. Coughed a "ha" of encouragement. "...Yeah, look at that, Leon! You're almost there - just, you know... keep focused. Keep focused... Tune in - till you can hear what they're saying."

Leon's brow scrunched deeper. "Who's '_they_'?"

He hissed one "shh". Way sharper than he normally would - he shut his eye again, swallowed, so's not to have to see the guy flinch. He shifted on the tatami a little - heard Leon doing the same. Nodded in time with the seconds.

"Just listen to your head again," he said. "If you're quiet... and you listen really, really close... you can hear, like, this tiny, tiny sound at the front of your brain."

"Oooookay..." Turning inflection. _Yeah, yeah - IIII can see what you're going for...!_ "Yeah? Uh - y-yeah, I think I hear it? Now what?"

"I want you to open it up. Like... magnify it with your _brain_." One, two... thhhhrr_rreeeeeeeee_ seconds without response... "C'mon, Leon, you should hear this - chorus of beautiful women's voices! I want you to listen nice and close. You can do it, buddy, now tell me - what are they saying?"

He had opened both eyes at this point. Head lowered further, turned, to eye Leon around just one side of his lifted hands.

The guy was chewing his lip, in the manner of a short-faced prettyboy goat. Another creaking-in and falling "_ \- Uuuuhh_hhh...

"...Tshhhhhhh, theyyyyy're not telling me shit, dude." Leon shook his head.

Lowered it further as Hagakure raised his. _Wait, no, wait -_

\- aaaaand lowered his hands to clap onto and grasp lightly around his thighs. Massaging and rubbing in that super-absent kinda fitfulness, using yourself as a stressball. Eyes opening promptly, rolling aside and up to the corner of the room. "Why do I gotta listen in on what, like... a whole crowd of cute girls is telling me, anyway?" His brow tensed a little again. Pupils flicked back Hagakure's way. "Are they supposed to... I dunno, give me directions to the one I'm lookin' for, or something?"

" - Uh - " Hagakure leaned back a little. Held up one hand - holding his place, for a sec, _let him think let him think_ \- "N-nah, man! It's, uh..." A quick lip-thinning gulp. "...i-i-it's _all_ the right girls you gotta listen to!"

"So, like - I gotta follow a chain of girls before I find the girl of my dreams, or something?" Leon let his head nod cocked. "Like a whole, what, six degrees of separation thing?"

"...Uhhhh, not exactly?"

Leon's eyes flattened on him.

"See, uh - " He waved indistinctly side to side. You know. "Thi - this method's to get you to listen in on girls all over the world who could turn out to be 'the one', you get it?"

Leon sneezed into a scoffy kinda a sound. One dark eyebrow arched high. He slipped his hands into his coat pockets, leaned forward a bit.

"The hair and stuff was to open you up a little more, see?" Hagakure sat up taller. His teeth showed in his most salesmanly smile. "Girls are into dark guys!"

"Seriously?!"

Fella's tone had hit a little of a cracking upper edge.

Hoo, boy.

"I thought I was paying you to help me find my _true love_, or somethin' like that! Not tell me to un-punk myself and go back to settling for the crowds of women going all gaga over _Mr. Baseball Star!_"

Hagakure avoided eye contact. Heaved a whole lotta dust out in a _sigh_, picked it up in a "yeah, yeah..." as he shook his head.

"I'm not doing all this 'reinventing myself' stuff for nothing, guy!" Leon pointed at himself with a withdraw and turn-in of his finger. "It's Leon Kuwata, next _Ultimate Musician_, who's gonna get his first kiss! I mean - I bet plenty of those other girls are cute and stuff, but do you think I want 'em following me around? You think I wanna be scoping out the lineup outta the girls who're here for _this_ Leon? The old, dead, dingy, dressed-down _'just another guy on the team'_ Leon? I don't dye my hair red for nothing - I wanna advertise that I got _fire_ in me, you know?"

At some point, he had bent his index finger in - flipped out the bird, instead.

Yeah. He got it. Another sage nod. He got it.

Another.

...As he stared dead-eyed into space, at the light coming through the screen off to the left. ...His left, he supposed. Leon's right.

This was the fourth bust today, he thought. He had... _one_ more scheduled.

He didn't like those odds.

"...You got a point, though, huh," said Leon. Hagakure looked back over as if called by the _snap_ of a pair of fingers. The other fella was combing his fingers through his hair - drags, flicks, trails. The occasional twirl of a thick bi-colored lock. "You think I oughta go for a whole 'dark' thing? Like... the edgy kinda punk? _That_ kinda rock-and-roll vibe?"

_Ding ding ding._

A heat began to rise and build and turn clouds in his chest again as if off a steamer.

Hagakure fell forward. Chin propped up on his hand, elbow propped up on one knee. Finger bent to stroke his chin as his salesmanly smile came back up aaaaaaall nice and bright. On the opposite knee, his fingers set to drum drum drum drum drumming in a roll. _Let's see..._ "You up for paying up front to find out right away how your prospects look at finding your dream girl like that? You know I like to help a pal out..."

* * *

_Note:_ A bit of a silly little "had to get this out of my system" one-shot inspired by a convo with my best friend, the "prompt", of sorts, being the "Hagakure trying to get Leon to change up his appeal so that he may commune with an even broader network of those who would make him their waifu, in theory", roughly.


End file.
